


Always coming back

by TrenchcoatsandMisery



Series: Who are we to each other? [1]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak is a Mess, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier-centric, Eddie ended up being an asshole, Gay Richie Tozier, I don't mean it, I love eddie, It just happened, M/M, Oblivious Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is Whipped, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, Sad Richie Tozier, Soft Richie Tozier, myra sucks butt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 16:35:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20745320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrenchcoatsandMisery/pseuds/TrenchcoatsandMisery
Summary: Richie isn’t sure if he’s a mistress.He also doesn't know where he stands with Eddie





	Always coming back

Richie isn’t sure if he’s a mistress.

He sleeps with a married man, that’s for sure, but whether that makes him a mistress is a complete grey area. On one of his sadder, drunker nights (the kind where you down a bottle of wine and wonder whether this whole ‘having fun with a closeted married man’ is what you want from life and if you’re gonna die sad and fatandalone oh god-), he’d googled it. He’d been disappointed that the main meaning of mistress was “a woman who has power, authority or ownership.” The _sexy_ definition was actually the fourth suggested answer and was very gender-specific. Turns out that the dictionary is a sexist asshole.

But as investigations into labelling what you do with your penis go, it had not cleared anything up.

It’s not like he’s unused to being what _liberal_ dictionaries would label a mistress. Richie’s sexuality wasn’t exactly going to earn him a parade in the small, shitty town he lived in and at thirteen that was a depressing but acceptable revelation. Connor, the cute street fighter boy who giggled when he laughed, had been Richie’s first (second technically, but he doesn’t like to think about that) crush. The fact that Connor’s cousin had called him a fa- , let’s just say bad word, and the boy couldn’t stand to be seen with Richie in public was fine. It was the best summer of his life and his first kiss. He was in the closet, yeah that sucked, but there was someone out there who wanted to be in there with him, even if it was only at night in his dad's old shed.

………………………………………………………………………………………….

Richie was pretty sure he wasn’t a mistress. Mistress sounded dirty, brought images of big women in spandex stepping on a repressed white male writhing on the floor calling to his mommy. That couldn’t be right, because what Richie did with Eddie wasn’t dirty. When they were together it was cheesy banter, panted breaths, takeaway Chinese food and warm showers. Text conversations that lasted until midnight. Who cares if the messages were cut off when Eddie’s wife comes home from work, or that sometimes Richie wakes up with Eddie already shrugging on his shirt to get home for breakfast?

Some days Richie thinks he might love Eddie.

Scratch that, he **knows** he loves Eddie.

Denial is for people who are afraid, and Richie hasn’t felt true fear in a long time. He’s loved Eddie since they were kids, loved the scrappy boy with the broken arm and the sailor’s mouth and that irrational fear of all things dirty. He could spend hours listening to him talk, laugh, swear. As he watches a half-dressed Eddie trying to carry two bowls of ice cream to the untidy motel bed that they’ve spent the last hour on he doesn’t know how he could ever deny it.

Some days he thinks Eddie might love him back.

Sometimes he wants to ask but doesn’t. Instead, he leans back against the headboard, smiles at his lover.

“Am I your mistress?”

He keeps his tone light, lets it sound like just another trashmouth comment designed to provoke anger or laughter, not a deep question that Richie can’t seem to get past. It works because Eddie just laughs and God, does that laugh do things to Richie, feelings things, not sex things. Not that it doesn’t also do that, but the warmth he gets at the sound makes him want to curl up and hold onto that feeling.

“It’s a Paramour asshat.”

“Parawhat?”

Eddie flops onto the mattress, handing Richie his bowl of ice cream.

“A male mistress is a paramour. Or at least, that’s what they were in fancy times. And it’s not like your mine.”

“Had one before?”

They fall into silence. Eddie doesn’t talk about what they have, what they do. He moans about his wife, they do the dirty and then they act like best friends for the rest of the night. Richie doesn’t know if he’s the only one, or one of many, or one after a line of others. All he knows is that he loves Eddie and Eddie likes him and that if he gets a message with three sun emoijis then he’s gonna get laid. He hates this tension though, wants to make Eddie happy, ignores the little voice in his brain that tells him that’s what a good little paramour would do.

“Guess your mother’s my mistress then. Y’know. Cause I’m fucking her.”

There’s a laugh again and Eddie’s, well, Eddie again. And then he’s talking about his work, his wife’s shitty lasagne, and maybe he doesn’t even notice that Richie isn’t smiling. Because Richie is always the joke and he’ll never be Eddie’s wife. But he grins and swears and continues on.

Because he’ll always come back because while Eddie may have another life, this is all he’s got.

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up way more angsty then anticipated, for the record I love Eddie, I have no idea how he ended up being a bit of a dick in this story.


End file.
